Iran’s presidential election has turned out to be much more competitive than most political observers expected, with reformer Mir-Hossein Mousavi mounting a strong challenge to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Escobar argues the campaign of Mousavi, a moderate conservative, evolved into a “green revolution," the color of Islam and what has become the color of hope for a less confrontational, and more competent and pragmatic administration.

Mousavi's campaign - roughly the Iranian equivalent of Obama's U.S. campaign 2008 - has crossed all economic, ethnic and gender barriers, and was heavily supported by Iran's very young, tech-savvy population. He has the youth vote, the women's vote and the intelligentsia vote, Escobar says.

But President Ahmadinejad, running for a second term, has stronger support in the rural provinces.

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